How to sell to Procurement leads at E-commerce companies
Procurement leads in e-commerce are primarily measured by cost savings and supplier performance. They respond positively when they see an understanding of their unique challenges, such as the pressure to maintain low inventory costs while ensuring product availability. Highlighting insights about optimizing supplier relationships can spark their interest in a conversation.
Written and maintained by the SoloRiff team, who build outbound software and run outbound with it. The figures below are our own: we measured 578 e-commerce company domains over public DNS on 2026-09-03. Last updated 2026-09-03.
What actually hurts
- high inventory costs
- supplier reliability issues
- slow order fulfillment
- poor product availability
The playbook
- 01
Identify vendors with recent supply chain disruptions
Search for e-commerce brands that have publicly reported supply chain issues in the last 30 days. These challenges create urgency for procurement leads to seek new suppliers or solutions, making them more open to discussions.
- 02
Research their current supplier contracts
Use LinkedIn or industry reports to find out which suppliers the target e-commerce company is currently using. If you can identify a supplier known for poor service, it will provide a strong reason for them to consider alternatives.
- 03
Craft a message addressing inventory management
Tailor your outreach to highlight how your solution can help improve inventory turnover rates. Mention specific pain points such as excess stock or stockouts, which are common issues for procurement leads in e-commerce.
- 04
Follow up after an industry event
If the target procurement lead recently attended a relevant e-commerce conference, reference the event in your follow-up. This shows you are engaged with their industry and can create a connection based on shared experiences.
- 05
Propose a brief call to discuss cost savings
Suggest a 15-minute call to explore how your approach can lead to measurable cost reductions. Emphasize that you understand their goal of achieving better margins in a competitive e-commerce landscape.
Can e-commerce companies even receive your mail?
We measured the DNS of 578 e-commerce companies, sampled evenly across company sizes, to see how many authenticate their own email. It matters in both directions: a domain that does not authenticate is a domain whose team is used to mail going missing — and if your own domain is in the gap, yours is the mail going missing.
Publishes a DMARC policy of quarantine or reject — the domain actually asks receivers to act on failures.
The gap is the finding: 19.6% of 1–10-person companies against 67.5% of the largest — 48 points apart. Small companies are where the unauthenticated domains are, and small companies are who most cold outreach is aimed at.
Where does your domain sit?
Same three lookups, run live against your domain. Nothing is stored and nothing is emailed to you.
How this was measured
Company domains were sampled within employee-count bands, then queried over public DNS for SPF (TXT at the apex), DMARC (TXT at _dmarc.) and MX. One domain per company, deduplicated. Anyone can reproduce any single row of this with dig.
DKIM is deliberately absent. A DKIM key lives under a selector that cannot be enumerated from outside the domain, so a company with flawless DKIM under a name we did not guess would be counted as having none. That would measure our guess list, not the industry.
Domains with no MX record are excluded rather than counted as failures — parked and redirect-only domains would otherwise drag every figure down and make the result an artefact of the sample.
Sampled within bands, so this describes the population of companies, not of employees: a 10-person company counts once, as does a 10,000-person one. Each band is at least 60 domains; bands below that are not published. Figures are percentages of the sample, not of the whole industry, and we publish no company names — only counts.
Measured 2026-09-03. Re-measured monthly.
The full census across every industry — sortable, with sample sizes, free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
Subject lines that fit
- Improving supplier performance
- Cost savings for e-commerce
- Streamlining procurement processes
Questions
- Why do procurement leads in e-commerce avoid cold outreach?
- Procurement leads often receive numerous cold outreach messages, many of which lack relevance to their specific challenges. If your message doesn't clearly address their pain points, such as inefficiencies in their supply chain, they are likely to ignore it.
- What factors influence procurement decisions in e-commerce?
- Key factors include cost efficiency, supplier reliability, and the ability to meet fluctuating demand. Procurement leads prioritize solutions that can help them manage these aspects effectively while minimizing risks associated with inventory management.
- How can I demonstrate value to procurement leads?
- To demonstrate value, focus on case studies or examples that show how your solution has helped similar e-commerce businesses reduce costs or improve supplier relationships. Concrete results resonate more than generic claims.
- What common objections might procurement leads have?
- Procurement leads may express concerns about the integration of new suppliers or solutions into their existing processes. Addressing these objections requires a clear explanation of how your offering can seamlessly fit into their current operations.
Or have it run itself
SoloRiff does every step above on its own — finds the companies, finds the people, writes each of them individually, and handles the replies. Drop your URL and watch it work before you sign up for anything.
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